I was eight years old when my dog, that I had my entire life, died. My chocolate lab, Sofie, died at thirteen, due to a stroke. To me, Sofie was dark blue. She had a sadness to her that not many dogs could achieve. She moped around and stayed in the basement away from people most of the time.

“Sofie!” I call out, looking throughout the house. She is always in the basement but I still have hope she will one day choose to lay in my room. I start making my way downstairs and to the guest bedroom-the furthest room from the stairs. She is laying there, up against the wall by the bed. I know she doesn’t hate me because then she would get up and leave, but she doesn’t. She always lets me pet her and lay by her for a little bit before she’s decided she's had enough of me.

 She loved us, but showed it in a unique way. You would think it would make me love her less, but if anything it made me love her more. When she died, a huge part of my life was taken away from me. I had never known what life was like without her here with me, even if she wasn’t as happy and energetic as other dogs. Shortly after Sofie died, I got a small brown stuffed dog that looked like her so I would always have something to remember her by. After a few weeks, my family noticed how poorly I was taking her death and gave me her first ever collar. A miraculously tiny, Army green collar from when my parents got her. 

Crying. All day I have been crying. I look at my chocolate lab stuffed animal and think how this is the closest I’ll get to her again. My mom came into my room with her hands behind her back. She revealed that what she was hiding was a small Army green collar. “Sofie’s first collar, it will fit perfectly around stuff animal Sofie’s neck!” So that is what we are doing. Putting her collar on my stuffed animal. Now she really is with me forever.

They got Sofie two years before my sister was born and four years before me. Her collar symbolizes the love that I will always have for her, it symbolizes our bond that I get to keep forever, and it symbolizes the heartbreak that I felt when she was put down. The memory is forever engraved in my brain.

 I’m sitting on the couch with my grandma and my sister, all of us crying. My parents just left to go to the emergency vet. Sofie had a stroke and fell off the bed. She hasn’t been eating or drinking all day and now she can’t move. This is the most scared I have ever been in my entire life. I fell asleep before my parents came home, but when they did, I noticed there is no Sofie with them.

Sofie’s Army green collar is the first thing I would think of to take from my bedroom if there was a fire. Phones and Laptops may be more expensive, but those are replaceable. The connection between me and that Army green collar is something that will never happen again in my life. It is irreplaceable.